


Can't Do Better

by veivei



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Crossdressing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 00:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11589150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veivei/pseuds/veivei
Summary: “I want information,” Mikage interrupted him. "Something only you know.”





	Can't Do Better

“And as for payment…” Izaya continued, leaning back in his chair and apparently doing some calculations in his head.

“I want information,” Mikage interrupted him. 

“What kind?” He looked at her curiously.

“Something only you know,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Personal kind? You know I don’t do trades like that.”

“It’s nothing that could be ever used against you. Something about our past.”

“Well…” He was probably back to thinking about the value of such things. “One question,” he decided. “And I can refuse to answer and pay you with money instead.”

That wasn’t a particularly good deal but she knew she wasn’t going to get anything more from him. Izaya had been keeping his distance from her for the past few years and she hadn’t been going out of her way to involve herself with him either but now that she was working for him she had decided to try to use the opportunity to understand some things that had happened between them back in high school better.

One question. It had to do for now. She was going to find out more later.

“That dress you gave me,” she spoke up. “Was it really ever yours? Or something you took out of your mother’s closet?”

“Mikage-chan, you wonder if I haven’t lied to you,” he observed. “It’s hurtful you assume such things about me." He sighed. "And what makes you think I won’t simply repeat the same lie as back then?”

“You don’t sell information you know to be false,” she said without hesitation.

“Don’t you know me too well.” He smiled. “This is the kind of question I should refuse to answer though, because my awfulness can be revealed when I answer. Though if you already know the extent of it, maybe the loss won’t be so big. What if you won’t be interested in interacting with me ever again once you know the truth though? I enjoy using you.”

“Don’t make such rude confessions,” she warned him. “And I won’t cut ties with you just because I heard that you lied to me.”

“Would you be all right with me having manipulated you like that?”

“That is what you do.” She shrugged. “I’m aware of that.”

“So there, it wasn’t my dress,” he admitted. “The walk-in closet at my family home is accessible from both what was my room back then and my parents’ bedroom and I actually shared it with them. So when I walked in there and emerged with a dress, it was my mother’s but I thought it would be easy enough to trick you into believing it was mine. It was not one she cared about either because it no longer fit her at that point. That’s how I was able to give it to you just like that.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Mikage-chan. Though I also fear your wrath.”

“I always assumed it might have been like that.” 

“You did? Then why did you go along with it?”

“Because it helped me at the time. Though that was something I only realized later.”

\---

“Why do you own a dress?” she asked, dumbfounded, but trying to sound like she wasn’t, holding the silky black garment in her hands now that he’d thrown it to her.

“I liked it so I got it,” he answered. “But even if it fits you, we still need to go shopping for shoes.”

“You got it for whom?” she asked. His sisters, who were currently watching television in the living room, were preschool age. “Your mother?”

“For me,” he said. “You should ask if I tried it on. I did,” he answered his own question right away with a smile.

Her eyes moved over him more carefully than they’d done before but she wasn’t seeing anything out of the ordinary. He was looking as much like a boy as any other boy at school, though she had to admit his face was strikingly handsome. That was something she was trying not to think about though.

“Why?” she asked, looking at the dress in her hands quizzically.

“Take a look at yourself, Mikage-chan. You’re wearing a boy’s uniform.”

Well, she was. It was more practical and actually it was the same one her brother had grown out of so it was a way to save money. Also, when she was challenging boys from other schools to fights she bet they were all mistaking her for a boy when she was dressed like that. It was fine by her as long as she got the fights she wanted.

She’d tried to challenge Orihara, too. She’d been intrigued by the way he’d been able to go against Heiwajima, so after a period of observation she’d cornered him after class. His answer had been that he didn’t fight girls. Fine enough. He was a guy from her own school so she had expected it could have ended like that. He must have known from someone beforehand that she was actually female. 

Then he had asked her out. That had been unexpected. It had never happened before, for obvious reasons. She should have turned him down, too, but somehow she found herself at his home, getting to know he was cross-dressing. She figured it was her lack of experience with boys that had led to this. She didn’t know how to refuse him when he looked at her with those piercing red eyes and a self-assured smile. Of course, if he actually tried something untoward, she was ready to use her fighting skills to defend herself. But would that even be enough against a guy like him? Especially when he apparently carried a knife?

“You dressing like the opposite sex isn’t as revolting because you’re a girl. But it’s the same thing,” he said. “Try that dress on. It should fit you. We seem to be about the same size. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll go out of the room.” 

“No, I think I should go home,” she said, looking up after having assessed the dress. It was long but apparently had a slit down the side and spaghetti straps. She doubted showing herself in it to a boy would have been appropriate even though it was an acceptable garment for a woman to wear to an outing. She wasn’t used to something like that though. And she knew she wouldn’t have known what to do with the resulting attention.

“You accepted my invitation. So what’s wrong now?” he asked. “I’d rather not take you on a date in a boy’s uniform unless you want things to be weird. And you said yourself you had nothing better to change into at home.”

She’d said that because it was true. She owned a lot of sports clothes and some casual wear that could have well enough been a boy’s. Not a single dress though.

“Is it because you think I’m weird now?” He approached her and asked, looking her in the eye.

Not weirder than me, she admitted to herself, though she still didn’t know the reason he’d had for ever buying a dress and putting it on.

“It’s too sudden,” she said.

“If I will talk to you at school first, your brothers will take note and chase me away. Isn’t it better like this?”

“How do you know about my brothers?” Her eyes narrowed.

“You’ve been following me around the past few days, so I looked into who you were."

She thought he hadn’t noticed her doing that. He must have been thinking she was some kind of a desperate stalker, she realized, her hands clenching on the garment she was holding.

“It was because I wanted to fight you,” she said.

“Well, that was unexpected from a girl, I’ll give you that. Before you challenged me, I’d assumed you were attracted to me.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said defiantly.

“That’s fine by me.” He shrugged. “Though why come with me here then?” He looked at her as if he could read her mind and knew all about the thoughts she had about his looks.

She couldn't help but blush.

"But whatever you're thinking about me, you picked my interest and I want to see you in that dress.” He continued with a smile. “It’s a waste in a way for me to own it. If it fits you, I’d like you to have it. We don’t have to go out after that if you don’t want to.”

\---

“You were really cute in that dress,” Izaya said. “Too bad you didn’t agree to a date.”

Mikage didn't know if he was serious or just playing around. She knew it was useless asking him what he would have done if she had agreed. And if things could have ever been different when it came to what had happened later.

“Are you single, Mikage-chan?” he asked, looking at her thoughtfully.

“You know the answer to that question yourself,” she snorted, well aware how much into snooping around he was.

“Yes, I know you’re not married and that you live alone. And I haven’t heard anything from my sisters either. But believe it or not, I’m not monitoring your bed.” He looked her in the eye.

“That’s reassuring.”

“If I asked you now, would you go out with me?”

“You’ll find out when you ask me, Izaya.”


End file.
